Chennai: India’s EV sales are all set to hit 800,000-900,000 units this financial year — a trebling of numbers from 340,000 units in FY21-22. “Other than the fires everything that had to happen right has happened right with petrol prices going northward, critical mass of EV sales, new products with good range and customers getting the courage to utilise the EV and we can expect a 3x to 4x growth this year with sales hitting 8,00,000-9,00,000 units up from 3,40,000 units last financial year,” said Sohinder Gill, director-general, Society of Manufacturers of Electric Vehicles (SMEV).
Despite the fire, there is still a 45-60-day wait list for electric two wheelers and all the big companies have 5,000-10,000 units sitting in order books.
Already, despite a slight blip due to e-two wheeler fires, the sales have been in top gear. According to SMEV stats, sales of electric two wheelers, three wheelers, buses, cars and other vehicles almost doubled twice over in the January-May period from 78,903 units in 2021 to 3,17,890 units in 2022. The stats do not take into account e-rickshaws and low-speed bikes that do not require registration, so the final numbers added to the EV pool is actually larger.
While the big jumps are on the back of low sales last year particularly since FAME 2 kicked in only early 2021, this growth also has some market triggers. “The OEMs across product categories have introduced more models and choices for customers resulting in rapid growth in adaption of electric vehicles,” said Ravi Bhatia, president, JATO Dynamics. E-mobility, he added, is on the verge of “a real breakthrough” provided there is “policy stability and investments in capability building”. What is interesting is that this 5-month vroom has come despite a drop in electric two-wheeler sales in May due to the scooter fires. From just over 42,000 units in March and just under 42,000 units in April, sales came down nearly 20% 32,600 units in May. Overall though that dip was covered by sales of other categories of vehicles as well as new launches.
Despite the May blip, two wheelers continued to rule the charts with sales of 198,373 in January-May 2022, up from 27,751 units in the same period last year. Three wheelers were at 106,233 units from 46,525 units and cars were at 12,601 units compared to 3,367 units in the year-ago period. Only buses did better last year at 1,245 compared to 659 units this year.
Automotive sales are still recovering from the combination of Covid-19, semiconductor shortages and a host of other factors. The overall market should pick up in the next few years, but EV sales are rising fast enough now to keep combustion vehicles from returning to their previous peak.